


Crisis of Conscience

by BetweenScenes



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 20:01:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12614336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetweenScenes/pseuds/BetweenScenes
Summary: What if a conversation with her sister caused Geneva to have a change of heart?  An alternate view of 3 x 04.





	Crisis of Conscience

**Author's Note:**

> This work is another take on chapter 19 in my “Stuck in the Classics” piece, with a change in point of view and an exploration into what would cause Geneva to rethink her motivations.

      “Ye filthy wee bitch!”

      The tone of his voice echoed in Geneva Dunsany’s mind as she flounced away from MacKenzie, the memory of his words as unpleasant as the sickly sweet odor of horse manure and rotting straw pervasive in the stables.

     Why was she letting him get under her skin?  He was only a groom.

* * *

 

     Isobel was in the sitting room when she returned to the main house. Isobel and Geneva were nothing alike, despite being sisters, and they little cared for each others’ company. Isobel would never behave as odiously as she felt Geneva did, and Geneva completely disrespected Isobel’s retiring manner. Ironically, despite that general lack of liking for each other, they had an odd bond of openness and honesty that each valued.

     “I’m giving my maidenhead to MacKenzie tonight,” Geneva announced nonchalantly, sitting in the chair across from Isobel.

     Isobel blanched and put the needlepoint frame on her lap, looking around to see if any servants were in earshot. “Surely you jest, Geneva. Has he propositioned you? You must tell Father!”

     “No. I’ve ordered him to come to my chamber tonight. And you will keep watch, calling away any servants who attempt to come near.” Geneva spoke with the certainty of a girl who had been denied almost nothing in her life.

     Isobel narrowed her eyes at her sister. Though she was the younger of the two girls, she often felt much more mature than her impetuous sibling.

     “Geneva,” she sputtered. “That’s immoral! To give yourself to a man who is not your husband!”

     Geneva rolled her brilliant blue eyes. “What if it were you?”

     “I would  _never_  offer myself to a man to whom I was not wed.”

     “No? What if Father and Mother were ordering you to marry the Earl of Ellesmere, despite your feelings for Lord John?”

     Isobel blushed.

      Geneva continued saucily. “Is the Earl of Ellesmere as handsome or thoughtful, as well-spoken or kind as Lord John? Would  _you_  obey willingly? What if Lord John could not marry you, but was willing to take your maidenhead? Would you save it for that old goat instead?”

     “Don’t speak of your intended thus!” hissed Isobel, but Geneva could tell that her alternate scenario had shaken Isobel’s moral certainty.

      It was no secret, not even to Lord John, that Isobel favored the young officer. Unfortunately, he only expressed a generic sense of affection rather than the specific favor Isobel would have preferred. He spent more time with MacKenzie on his visits than he did with the girls.

     “And MacKenzie is amenable to this?” Isobel inquired, lowering her voice.

     “Does it matter?” Geneva huffed. “He’s only a groom. He will do as I say!”

     “This is nothing like forcing him to take you on a ride, Geneva,” Isobel said in an uncharacteristically harsh tone. “This is not asking him to re-shoe your palfrey. Not to muck out the stalls or clean your boots. You cannot order him to bed you!”

     “But I have. And he will come to my room tonight.” Geneva’s nonchalant tone belied her sudden self-doubt.

     “Will he?” Isobel asked. “When he could get in trouble and lose his job?”

     “That’s what I told him would happen if he does  _not_  come to me,” Geneva said, arching her eyebrows haughtily. “I told him if he refused I would tell Mother that he fought with the Highlanders during the battle of Culloden, and that she could have his parole revoked.”

     “Geneva!” Isobel exclaimed in horror, the usually mild-mannered sister turning on Geneva with a look in her eyes that seared Geneva’s soul. “How could you live with yourself, knowing that he came to your bed by coercion? Geneva, that’s  _rape_!”

     Isobel was furious. She stormed off, leaving Geneva sitting in stunned silence.

* * *

 

 

     The door opened without a knock.

     As he entered, he paused. He locked the door, but stood by it, his body turned away from Geneva, only his face looking at her. His hair was thick and wavy and ridiculously red.

     So was the fiery anger in his face. Thin lipped, he glared at her with tortured eyes.

     “You weren’t seen?” Geneva asked. 

     He shook his head.

     “Thank you for coming, Jamie,” she said, a prim smile upon her face.

     “Lady Geneva,” Jamie’s eyes narrowed as he spoke firmly. “Having brought me to your bed by the means of threats against my family, I’ll no have ye call me by the name they gave me.”

     “What must I call you then?”

     “Alex. ‘Tis my own name as well.”

     He stood there, unsure of how to proceed, but Geneva did not give him any directions. Jamie took a few more steps into the room, then sat down at the dressing table and removed his boots. Standing again, he looked around, taking in the grand floral wallpaper, the ornate wall sconces. And her, sitting on the green velvet bedspread in the silken robe from her wedding trousseau.

     Then he looked away, shaking his head. He heaved a sigh.

     “You’re right.” Geneva spoke quietly. “This is wrong.”

     Jamie turned to her, a look of ironic bitterness on his face. “Aye. A lady using threats to compel a man to bed her? A lassie of good breeding ordering a groom to come to her room in secret? A girl engaged to be married taking a man to her bed who is not her betrothed? Indeed. This  _is_  wrong.” He clenched his lips firmly.

     “Perhaps,” she responded. “But is it not also wrong for parents to order their daughter to be married to a man as old as her grandsire?  I don’t think it wrong for a young woman to want to be  _attracted_  to the man who takes her maidenhead. And I don’t think it wrong for a young woman to wish for someone who could be her equal in passion the first time she experiences the act of love.”

     She continued, hesitantly. “But I  _am_  sorry for what I have done. It was wrong of me to manipulate you into coming here. It was cruel of me to threaten you, to threaten your family. And I do beg your forgiveness.”

     Jamie looked at her, his gaze impenetrable. In the hours since Geneva’s indecent demand, he had considered what it would mean to be with a woman again. He’d been at Ardsmuir for three years. Before then, he’d been a virtual hermit for seven, celibate except when Mary MacNab had given herself as a parting gift before he turned himself in to the Redcoats. That had been years ago, and Geneva was beautiful, no matter how unattractive her personality.

     He had loved Claire. He still loved Claire, and his love for her and his strength of character had turned him into a near monk. Claire lived on in his memory, a perfect love that would never be equaled; but he was still a man, a virile man, and the thought of how it would be with Geneva had indeed crossed his mind.

     Even now his mind was warring against his body. Parts that had not claimed his attention in ages seemed to be very aware that this was a bedroom and that the dark haired girl in front of him appeared to be wearing  _nothing_  beneath that ridiculous frilly get-up.

     He hesitated, warily looking at her. “May I go, then, milady?” he asked.

     She wanted to make him stay, and Geneva certainly had the power to. But Isobel’s words echoed in her mind. “How could you live with yourself, knowing that he came to your bed by coercion?Geneva, that’s  _rape_.” She didn’t mind the thought of seducing someone, but she didn’t want any part of coercing a man to be with her.

     “You may go,” she said, nodding. “But, MacKenzie, if you are willing, would you stay and talk with me?”

     He had turned as if to go when she consented. But at her hesitant request, he slowly turned back. He squinted slightly, raising his chin, his lips almost curving into a smile. He crossed his arms over his chest and considered her.

      _Was she really that transparent?_  Geneva wondered. He could even read this less overt manipulation. He could tell she was proposing conversation with an ulterior motive. Rather than forcing him to come directly to her bed, she was making an attempt to show herself as a human being, and then, and only then, she would again ask him to be her first.

     “If that feels like manipulation, too, you can leave,” she said, reading the reluctance on his face. Geneva was not one to cry, but tears were pricking her eyes as she began to sense his strong desire to depart. 

     She pulled her fist up to press against her lips, trying to hide her quivering chin. She turned and looked away from him.

     Jamie’s expression of distrust turned into one of compassion. She was  _very_  young.

     “Milady. . .” he said, reaching into his sleeve and removing a handkerchief, which he crossed the room to offer to her.

     The tears had actually started rolling down Geneva’s cheeks, so she took the handkerchief, smiled gratefully, and dabbed at her eyes with the worn white fabric.

     Jamie had rested his hand companionably on Geneva’s arm, but he seemed to realize how that would appear to her, and withdrew it.

     Eyes dried, Geneva offered the handkerchief back to Jamie in a clear signal of dismissal. “Thank you, Alex,” she said. “You may go.” She turned her head, trying to keep her face from crumpling again.

     She waited for him to leave, but he did not. Finally he spoke.

     “Lady Geneva, I will stay for a time. But you must… _cover yourself_.” He indicated the front of her attire with a nod of his head, and then averted his eyes politely.

     She looked down and realized that the dressing gown she wore was not doing a good job of concealing everything. A gap in the frills exposed the soft curves of her breasts, along with a white expanse of her torso below.

     “Oh. I’m sorry,” Geneva said, turning her back to Jamie to cross the sides of the dressing gown more thoroughly over each other. Then she motioned for him to sit on the chair at her dressing table, and moved all the way across the room to the chair by the fireplace.

     “Milady,” he said with a thoughtful expression, “We canna speak that loudly, for fear of being heard. I will…” he looked around the room. “I will sit by the fire.” He walked across the floor, and sat on the carpeting in front of the fireplace. He groaned slightly as he lowered himself to the floor.

     “I’m no the young man I once was,” he said, chuckling slightly. “And working wi’ the horses can be a strain.” He leaned back on his hands, stretching his shoulders back, squeezing his shoulder blades together, leaning his head side to side, and pressing his back closer to the heat of the fire.

     Geneva pulled her feet up onto the chair, tucking the frilled edges of the dressing gown decently around her legs. “Surely you can’t be that old,” she responded.

     “Thirty-five,” he said.

    “Closer to my age than 60,” she retorted bitterly.

     Jamie looked up at the girl with raised eyebrows. She was bringing the conversation back to the reason she had forced him to come up here, and he was wary of any mention of her impending marriage.

     Geneva read his face, and sighed. “I’m sorry, MacKenzie. You are not the one who promised me to the Earl of Ellesmere. My parents know that he is wealthy, and that is supposed to be attractive enough to me to make me desire him. If only I could speak to my father and mother and tell them I do not wish it. But young ladies are not given much choice in their marriages, are they?”

     A cloud passed over Jamie’s face.

     “You’re a man. You get to decide for yourself,” Geneva said bitterly. ”You did say you were married once. It was your choice, wasn’t it?” she asked.

     “No  _much_  of a choice,” he said, with a distant smile. “I had loved my wife from afar before we wed, but I wouldna have chosen those particular circumstances for marriage. For we  _were_  forced to wed, and she didna want to marry me. She was. . .she was still in love with her first husband, ye see.”

     “Did she ever grow to love you?” Geneva asked, hesitantly.

     “Miraculously, yes, she did,” said Jamie, a smile lighting up his eyes. “And my love for her grew wi’ every day we were married. I only had her wi’ me for three years. We’ve been apart these ten years now, and I still yearn for her as I did when I was twenty-two.” His face flushed red, and his eyes were glistening in the firelight.

     His words made Geneva tear up again, and she turned her face away from him as she wiped her eyes.

     “Oh, lass, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didna mean to make you sad.”

     “Alex, I don’t think I will ever be able to love the Earl of Ellesmere like that. Maybe like I love my father, maybe like I loved my brother. But the thought of being taken to bed by him. . .” Geneva was fearful and distraught, but something in Jamie’s love-filled smile as he described Claire had tugged at her in ways she could not understand, empathy never having been one of her strengths.

     “I’m so sorry about your wife,” she said. “I can see how much you loved her by the look on your face. Will you. . .will you tell me about her?”

     Jamie sat up again, bending his legs to sit cross-legged. He stared down at his hands, rubbing the calluses gained from the daily use of pitchforks and rakes, lassoes and halters.

     “The day I first met Claire, she caused me more pain than I’d ever felt before. . .” his voice faded away, his eyes no longer seeing the Helwater bedchamber of Lady Geneva Dunsany. “My shoulder had gone out of joint. It was excruciating. I couldna think, the pain was so verra bad. They were going to just pull it back into place, and I heard this voice. . . a woman. She’s English, very proper, but she shouted, she ordered them to stop. Then she turned my arm and pulled and bent it and shoved it, and my shoulder popped back into place.  It hurt like the fires of hell, but then the pain was gone.”

     Geneva leaned her head against the side of the chair back, listening.

     “May I lay down, milady? It’s been a very long day,” said Jamie.

     In a rare burst of thoughtfulness, Geneva walked over to the bed and grabbed one of the bolsters, then pulled the green velvet cover off the bed, handing both to him. He folded the quilt to lie upon and put the pillow under his head, his feet stretched out in front of him, one stockinged leg crossed over the other.

     “She said she was a nurse,” Jamie chuckled. “I thought she meant a wet nurse, so I embarrassed myself terrible by looking at her bosom.”

     Geneva giggled, and the sound made him smile.

     “She was fierce, Claire was. But she was a healer. She set my arm, and later she bandaged a gunshot wound, and fixed my face up after a beating. She was so calm and capable.”

     “But when she touched me, when I touched her, that’s when I knew I wanted her more than I ever wanted anything before. We’d only known each other for a few days when she cried in my arms, missing her husband, and I knew I would protect her with my life.”

     A sigh from the chair above him made Jamie pause.

     “Was she beautiful? What did she look like?” Geneva asked.

     “Her hair was dark brown, somewhat like yours. But curly, like every hair had a mind of its own.” Jamie smiled in remembrance. “And her eyes were clear and blue. Like yours, I suppose.”*

     “She must have been sweet and kind, wasn’t she?” Geneva asked, with a look on her face that fully acknowledged the deficit in her own character.

     “Aye, at times, but she was also feisty. Wi’ quite a temper. And she had the foulest mouth on her. She would say the nastiest things!” Jamie huffed in amusement. “We fought something fierce in our early days. I even beat her, once. But then we vowed to each other that I wouldna do that again.” He shook his head, chuckling.

     “When did you lose her?” asked Geneva. “You said she’s been gone ten years.”

     “Just before the Battle of Culloden,” Jamie answered. “I thought I would die, so I sent her away. I dinna ken where she is now, or if she’s alive. I wish…I wish I could see her again. It has been…a very long time.”

     Jamie fell into silence, his face turned toward the low flames of the fire.

       _Was he just thinking,_  Geneva wondered,  _considering what to say next?_

     The silence continued. Finally Geneva thought she heard a little snore. She waited a little while longer, and heard it again.

     She leaned forward on the chair, looking at him. He was big, rugged and masculine. Sleep had erased any distress from his face. He truly was beautiful.

     This night was not what she had planned, and yet she felt strangely satisfied. Instead of forcing herself on Jamie, instead of coercing him to bed her, she’d had a moment with him, some time to listen to him, to provide him the comfort of friendship in this long darkness without his wife.

     Geneva chuckled as she once again heard his gentle snore, and then she got up from the chair. She pulled a plain shift out of her wardrobe which she placed beside the bed to change into once he was gone—she couldn’t imagine trying to sleep in this get-up. She should make certain to replace it in the trunk that held her wedding trousseau.

     She began blowing out the candles, preparing the room for rest, then looked back at Jamie.

     She hated to disturb him, but it wouldn’t do to have him found in her room.

     She knelt by him, and gently shook him by the shoulder.

     “MacKenzie,” she said. “Alex!” she murmured, bending closer.

     “Jamie!” she whispered loudly.

     He startled awake, blinking in the dim light. “Claire?” he exclaimed, seeing just the dark hair and the faint white glow of the robe.

     “No. No, it’s Geneva,” she answered. “It’s time for you to go.”

     “Oh, lass, I was dreaming of her. And then… you whispered my name…”

     Suddenly, Jamie was weeping. He rolled onto his side, his face buried in the pillow, his hand on Geneva’s knee. “Oh, Claire. God, I miss her!”

     Geneva little knew how to respond, but she stroked Jamie’s hair. She couldn’t understand why, but she began to cry again, too.

     When Jamie realized she was weeping, he beckoned to her, and she lay next to him on the quilt, tucking herself under his arm, with her head on his chest.

     “Sorry,” she said, after wiping her eyes on the front of his shirt.

     “’Tis no a problem,” he said kindly. “The horses have done much worse.”  
Geneva smiled.

     “I didna sleep very long, did I?” Jamie asked.

     “Oh, no. Just a few minutes. You still have time to get back to the stables.”

     He lay still for a moment, and Geneva could hear his slow breathing as well as the beating of his heart.

     “When I was a virgin,” Jamie said, “Claire took pity on my. I was  _terrible_  my first time. I was such a dolt. I thought ye did it from the back, like horses!” He huffed in amusement and covered his eyes in the crook of his elbow.

     “Oh...but… _you don’t_?” Geneva asked, unable to mask her bewilderment. “If that is so, I probably know less than you did.”

     “The first time is rarely as ye expected,” Jamie sighed, uncovering his face.  “But it  _does_  get better.”

     “ _Does_  it?” Geneva asked, doubt filling her eyes.

     Jamie face softened in understanding.  “I can see, my lady, how sad ye are that ye canna marry for love. I am truly sorry for ye.”

     “Thank you, MacKenzie,” said Geneva, gently removing herself from Jamie’s arms. She stood, and re-wrapped the robe around herself.

     Jamie pushed himself up on the quilt, and began to climb to his feet. “I do wish you well, Milady. Perhaps you will find the Earl of Ellesmere has  _hidden_  talents.” Geneva scoffed, and Jamie chuckled.

     He helped to spread the green velvet coverlet back over the bed, where Geneva sat down as she waited for him to depart.

     He walked over to the chair where he had taken off his boots. He paused, looked at her, and then looked away, lowering his eyebrows as if deep in thought. Finally he spoke.

     “I came up here for a reason, Lady Geneva,” he said. “That reason still exists. Ye are still to be wed three days from now. And I may be wrong, but I do believe you would still wish for me to…”

     “I  _did_ ,” Geneva responded. “But it was wrong of me. And you love your wife. And I’ll be fine.”  _Damn these feminine emotions_ , she thought.  _She was choking up again!_

     “Fine?” he responded, skeptically.

     Geneva struggled to meet Jamie’s eyes, and took a deep breath. “I would  _like_  for you to take me to bed. I believe you would be kind and patient.  But only if you want to also, Jamie,” she said. “I…I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

     He smiled, and turned toward her.

    “I  _do_  want to, Geneva,” he said, with a small, affectionate smile.

     Startled, Geneva stood up from the bed, folding her hands protectively in front of her.  She looked at him wide-eyed, breathless, suddenly shy and hesitant.  She turned away from him, thinking to give him privacy, but her eyes were drawn back to him.

     He was not comfortable; the awkwardness of the situation apparent on his face. However, Jamie gazed at Geneva kindly. “I’m going to undress now,” he said, “Ye can watch me, if ye’d like.”

***Continued at 24:14 in Starz Outlander, episode 3 x 04.

**Author's Note:**

> *In the books Claire’s eyes are amber/whiskey colored. But this pairs with the TV version of events, so I went with blue.
> 
> ***Continued at 24:14 in Starz Outlander, episode 3 x 04.


End file.
